Counting on Spring
Nov. 25th, 2023 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puddlesharkBright sunshine this morning, after the first hard frost of the autumn.
I finally got round to ordering some spring bulbs last week. Finally. I seem to order bulbs later every year. Partly, because we've been having a very mild autumn, and it would seem a shame to evict my summer bedding plants from their containers while they are still flowering. Partly because planting bulbs for the spring requires a certain degree of faith in the seasons, faith in the future.
But I decided to bet that Spring will come. Placed my bulb order. Farmer Gracy had sold out of most tulip varieties, but on the plus side, the remaining bulbs were heavily discounted, with free shipping, so I treated myself to 10 bulbs each of some of the weirder daffodils:
Narcissus 'Mondragon'
Narcissus 'Carice'
Narcissus 'Waterperry'
Narcissus 'Pink Charm'
Tulip 'Je t'aime'
Tulip 'Yume no Murasaki'
Tulip praestans 'Shogun'
Yeah, I may have got carried away.
Emptied the first half dozen summer bedding containers this morning in preparation, which was quite hard work, as the top couple of inches of compost was frozen solid.
The summer bedding plants - the verbena and the bacopa - very gone over, but still with a few last flowers on them, all went on the compost. The Nemesia in its pot on the doorstep is still flowering, and I haven't the heart to evict it yet.
Managed to chip out a deep enough hole in my gravel-pan garden to transplant some of the perennials: the hyssop and the Icelandic poppies. The hyssop might survive. The Icelandic poppies probably won't.
Next, I need to buy many bags of peat-free compost from the garden centre, ready for planting bulbs...
I finally got round to ordering some spring bulbs last week. Finally. I seem to order bulbs later every year. Partly, because we've been having a very mild autumn, and it would seem a shame to evict my summer bedding plants from their containers while they are still flowering. Partly because planting bulbs for the spring requires a certain degree of faith in the seasons, faith in the future.
But I decided to bet that Spring will come. Placed my bulb order. Farmer Gracy had sold out of most tulip varieties, but on the plus side, the remaining bulbs were heavily discounted, with free shipping, so I treated myself to 10 bulbs each of some of the weirder daffodils:
Narcissus 'Mondragon'
Narcissus 'Carice'
Narcissus 'Waterperry'
Narcissus 'Pink Charm'
Tulip 'Je t'aime'
Tulip 'Yume no Murasaki'
Tulip praestans 'Shogun'
Yeah, I may have got carried away.
Emptied the first half dozen summer bedding containers this morning in preparation, which was quite hard work, as the top couple of inches of compost was frozen solid.
The summer bedding plants - the verbena and the bacopa - very gone over, but still with a few last flowers on them, all went on the compost. The Nemesia in its pot on the doorstep is still flowering, and I haven't the heart to evict it yet.
Managed to chip out a deep enough hole in my gravel-pan garden to transplant some of the perennials: the hyssop and the Icelandic poppies. The hyssop might survive. The Icelandic poppies probably won't.
Next, I need to buy many bags of peat-free compost from the garden centre, ready for planting bulbs...
no subject
Date: 2023-11-25 09:11 pm (UTC)Carried away is going to be so fun later. You are going to have some beautiful surprises in the Spring! :)
no subject
Date: 2023-11-26 11:14 am (UTC)I do replant the bulbs in the garden once they have finished flowering in their containers, and quite a few of them come up the following year, so I've got quite a nice mix of varieties now.